2D barcodes are two dimensional codes comprising data, they can store website URL's, plain text, phone numbers, email addresses and pretty much any other alphanumeric data. They can be read using a 2D barcode scanner which are available on most of the mobile devices. There are several variations of the 2D barcodes, such as Quick Response Codes (QRC), and Microsoft Tag etc.
A 2D barcode can be static, of which the contents are fixed. It always points to the same web URL address or other fixed contents. A dynamic 2D barcode is the barcode that the web URL address it points to can be changed from a backend server. It consists of a fixed URL (usually short), which can then be re-directed to a new destination URL, and the new destination URL can be changed from the data server, so that effectively, a user who scan the 2D barcode can see contents from different webpages from time to time.
2D barcodes are the best tool to bridge the physical world with the online world. With the popularity of smart phones which users can easily download 2D barcode scanners, the 2D barcodes have been widely adopted by advertisers, manufactures, retailers, and many businesses.
But there is one problem with the existing dynamic 2D barcodes: all the users that scan the same barcode will see the same contents. Apparently it would be desirable for a user to scan a barcode and see contents that is more relevant to him. So the 2D barcode has to be personalized so that each person who scan the same barcode will see different contents! This is exactly one part of the patent claim.
On the other hand, people (especially kids) read lots of paper books, or play with toys or other physical things. But how can we know they really understand the contents in the books or how the toy works? This means that we need an offline learning evaluation system so that we can know how well the user understand the books or toys or other physical things. This is also one aspect of the invention: for each book, or toy, or other physical things, we make quizzes covering the topic, then we make 2D codes for these quizzes. User can scan these 2D barcodes and take the quizzes. The quizzes can be checked and the results can be send back to the backend server for recording. For the quizzes, we can also let the user know the correct answers after they took the quizzes.
Another aspect of the invention is that for each skill (for example, reading skill, math skill etc), we build a ladder system to indicate the level of the skill, and the tasks that needed to advance to the next level. Each task can be a book reading, or a quiz, or a game or other tasks to be assigned. The criteria of whether the user can be advanced to the next level is also defined as a separate module.
The grading of each task can be automatic or manual, or both. If it's automatic, then after the user finished the reading or finished the quiz, the results will be sent back to the server by the computer network without any human approval; if it's manual, then it needs to be approved by a judge (a teacher, for example) for the results to be used in determine the result of the task.
Each task will be linked with one 2D barcode, so that user can scan the barcode and do that task.
Another aspect of the invention is that there is an account for each user, when a user scan the barcode, we will identify the user's ID using an user ID verification module, then we can direct the barcode's URL to an URL that's relevant to the user. For example, we may direct the user to a new book, or a new quiz or new task that's suitable for this user's skill level, rather than the prior art that all users are directed to the same web URL.
The mobile communication device can have a task reader (such as a E-book reader). After 2D barcode is scanned, the task contents (quizzes, games etc) can be downloaded to the mobile communication device. This will make the contents be played with better qualities. After the task is done, the results will be uploaded to the data server.
The users can also download the task contents to the mobile communication device directly from the data server without scanning any 2D barcodes. After the task is done, the results will be uploaded to the data server.
Another aspect of the invention is that after the user scanned the barcode, did the quiz or passed the game, the results can also be used as instructions to control another device, such as open/close a lock; control a toy etc. The devices can be communicated through wireless protocol, or USB, or other device interfaces.